Just like the moon shines only because it reflects the sun’s light, your brand image has to reflect the awesomeness of your team to shine on the market. That, in essence, is what B2B IT service sales is about.
Without a specific product to sell it might be hard to define how you should market your company. Fortunately, I’ve got a few ideas to power up your messaging and boost your sales of B2B services. This will be helpful for graphic designers, developers, UX specialists, online freelancers and other service providers in and around the IT industry.
Hacks to increase sales of B2B services
When you’re selling services, you need to accumulate proof of how much you rock at what you do and showcase it as your attributes. This will help you build a factual story around your company – a story about hard work, cool people and mind blowing achievements.
In turn, this translates to how many potential clients can trust you, and trust wins deals in the IT service industry. To build that story, you need to work with clients all the time.
How do you start selling services when your brand name doesn’t speak for itself yet?
Look for the easiest point of entry
It’s hard to get a 100k or 1mln $ deal when you’re not a well-known company on the market. Approach potential clients with small services first, to get “in” and start gaining traction:
offer website reviews, audits, consulting, and training courses
you don’t want these gigs to shine in your portfolio, you want them to get into an industry and start building trust towards your brand
offer a package of further services at the end of small gigs to show that you would like to continue working with the client
An even more invasive tactic is to show something valuable upfront for free, as a “teaser”.
For example, a graphic design agency could approach potential customers directly and show an example logo or homepage redesign to instantly prove if their work is worthwhile. This way you’re selling your unique skills and expertise from the start, and building the groundwork for future 1mln$ deals.
Translate your service to data and $s
Using your customer’s language, you need to show that your services offer sensible ROI.
You can’t just say that you offer the best service in your industry, put a steep price on it and expect anyone to buy.
Back your price with data that shows real business results that your clients achieved through working with you. There’s lots of data you can generate when you do IT services:
we made an eCommerce shop site work faster by x%
we decreased server load by y%
we increased visitor-to-customer conversion rates by z%
The most powerful statistic would be: thanks to what we did for {company}, they started generating 30% more revenue in 3 months
There’s a small issue here – this information might be hard to get because clients might not want to openly share how much you’ve helped them. But all I can say is – ask and you shall receive.
Take all the data you can get and ask for more, ask to create a case study and use all this to brag (just a tiny bit though!) and overcome objections.
Reach potential clients directly with cold emails
Your marketing toolbelt isn’t complete without a proper outbound tactic. Cold email your prospects because it allows you to:
decide who will receive messages from you (powerful targeting)
personalise your messaging and approach each potential client directly
get first deals on a new market
scale outreach
And you can get creative with cold emails, like set-up a campaign targeted only at participants of a conference. Look for good potential clients in the list of attendees, and start cold emailing them a few weeks before the event with a meeting proposition.
Don’t forget what your target group needs
It’s hard to provide a framework for marketing all types of IT services. That’s because there are two sides to it –
what you put out for potential clients to see
how potential clients interpret your messaging
Think of what your target group really needs when you prepare your messaging. This will determine the theme of your messaging, for instance:
start-ups want to buy from companies that are agile, quick to deliver and fix issues
small companies usually just want to buy from the cheapest service provider
corporate clients need outside approvals (certifications, etc.) before considering negotiating with you
Your target group also determines what you can showcase in your messaging – case studies, data and sales arguments work best when you use them in their context. So when you brag, make sure to brag about companies similar to the ones you’re targeting.
Authority back-up
Set-up profiles on sites like:
and others of the sort that allow you to showcase your work (whether in the form of projects or case studies) and get rated for how good you are.
It’s just like liking a page on Facebook – the more “likes” on your profiles (=better rating), the better you look to a potential customer.
Don’t sacrifice the opportunity to work with influential clients. Even if it means giving a discount, or having to work your ass off – do your best to over deliver and give immense value to big shot clients, it’s worth it.
That one awesome, majorly positive opinion or case study that you’ll get in the end will overshadow many objections in negotiations with potential clients.
Create a good looking team page on your website
A page that showcases your whole team and their unique skills. It’s not just about the client recognising who’s doing the job for him, but also about adding to your company’s story.
Add a description of each team member and highlight success stories on the team page, make it interesting and prove your team members’ expertise. A good team page can make visitors like your team instantly.
The biggest value you can deliver
Regardless of what you’re selling, you need to offer valuable solutions to your target group’s pain points. But behind those solutions, there’s always a team that worked hard to deliver them effectively and on time. You need to show that hard work and dedication to potential clients because they can’t see what’s going on inside your company unless you let them take a peek.
What do your clients value the most about your service? The fact that they can trust you with doing it. At first, you need to provide proof that you can deliver value, but once you start gaining traction and keep building a trusted brand image – you’ll become the go-to company in your industry.
Hope this helps you successfully approach potential clients!
